Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator Ukrenergo has removed Vitaliy Zaychenko as chairman of its management board and reinstated Oleksii Brecht, the Supervisory Board said in a statement leaked by Ukrainian lawmaker Yaroslav Zheleznyak on Sept. 27.
The move follows a Sept. 16 ruling by the National Securities and Stock Market Commission that there had been procedural violations in recent board appointments, and reflects what the board called a loss of confidence in Zaychenko after weeks of escalating corporate conflict.
In June 2025, Zaychenko tried to nominate external candidates to the Management Board on a non-competitive basis – but the Supervisory Board approved the team in its existing form, without outside hires, according to the Supervisory Board Statement leaked by Zheleznyak in a Telegram post.
The appointments were then challenged on procedural grounds. On Sept. 16, the NSSMC ruled they lacked the necessary committee approval and instructed the Supervisory Board to correct the violation.
Brekht, who led the company from September 2024 to June 2025, is credited with managing the grid during a difficult heating season and sustaining operations under heavy Russian attacks. He was named as acting CEO after Zaychenko’s dismissal.
“In compliance with this requirement, the Supervisory Board dismissed and plans to appoint a Management Board. However, given the circumstances, Mr. Zaychenko lost the trust of the Supervisory Board and was not reinstated. Instead, Mr. Brecht was entrusted with the management,” the statement says.
Yaroslav Zhelezniak further revealed that Ukrenergo’s Supervisory Board did not receive permission to publish the statement on Ukrenergo’s website.
The statement also said that the Ministry of Energy had “dictated” that press releases could only be published after being approved by the Ministry – and expressed dissatisfaction with this requirement.
“This naturally brings delays to important communication and makes it harder to relay the Supervisory Board’s point of view,” the statement says.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy also ordered all Supervisory Board members to come to Kyiv in person to nominate the remaining members of the Management Board “due to security reasons.”
However, the Supervisory Board said that they did not understand the necessity of such a move.
“The Supervisory Board regrets this decision by the shareholder, does not see how this improves security. On the contrary, it makes working for the company and the energy security of Ukraine much more difficult,” the Supervisory Board members wrote.
Why the Ministry of Energy Is Clashing with Ukrenergo’s Supervisory Board
Ukrenergo is a state-owned electricity transmission system operator overseen by Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy, and its key role is to monitor the balance of Ukraine’s electricity generation and consumption.
Led by CEO Volodymyr Kudrytskyi since 2020, it underwent a corporate governance reform and formed its own supervisory board. But Kudrytskyia allegedly became an object of envy to then-energy minister Herman Halushchenko, the Kyiv Post reported in September 2024. This led to his unexpected dismissal on Aug. 30, 2024.
The official reason for Kudrytskyi’s dismissal was that he had left defensive constructions of high-voltage grid facilities unfinished, allegedly leading to interruptions in the electricity supply after Russian missile strikes on Aug. 26.
However, supervisory board members Daniel Dobbeni and Peder Andreasen, released a statement in which they announced their dismissal from the board – and claimed that the reasons for Kudrytskyi’s ousting were largely political.
The competition for the position of Chairman of the Management Board of NPC Ukrenergo was announced by the Supervisory Board of the company on Feb. 5, 2025.
Oleksii Brekht was appointed as the temporary chairman by Ukrenergo’s supervisory board on Sept. 5, although the announcement was not made until Friday, Sept. 13.
Under his tenure, Ukrenergo successfully renegotiated terms for “green bonds” that had been issued in 2021, despite the tense situation between Ukrenergo’s Supervisory Board and the Ministry of Energy.
In June 2025, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy amended the company’s charter, changing the voting rules. The new rules allowed government representatives to block the decisions of the independent board members with an additional vote.
In May 2025, the Ministry of Energy also unilaterally amended the company’s Articles of Association to change the rules for appointing the company’s CEO, the Supervisory Board’s statement says.
But although Zaychenko, the new Chairman of the Management Board who had served as the company’s Chief Dispatcher since 2015, was finally appointed, the Supervisory Board wrote that he “exacerbated the conflict” by proposing candidates for the Management Board on non-competitive grounds.
The Supervisory Board sees his actions as jeopardizing “the safe, professional, and corruption-free management of the company and Ukraine’s electricity system,” it wrote.
“Given the circumstances, Mr. Zaychenko lost the trust of the Supervisory Board and was not reinstated,” the statement says.
“Any loss of independence would weaken Ukraine’s energy security in the context of ongoing Russian aggression, undermine financial stability and hinder it from doing
the investments needed to safeguard the Ukrainian electricity system. It would also jeopardize the certification as a member of the European Electricity grid operators (ENTSO-E),” the statement continues.